Film review: Machete Kills (15, 108 min)

Lady Gaga makes her big screen acting debut in Machete Kills and the chameleonic pop vixen is a perfect fit for Robert Rodriguez’s blood-soaked sequel. Not only is the film festooned with scantily clad femmes in revealing costumes but Kyle Ward’s script repeatedly looks for shock value in every outlandish set-up.

Consequently, one henchman is sucked into the blades of a helicopter by his own intestines and another group of underlings is eviscerated into glistening entrails by the outboard motor of an airborne speedboat.

Anything can, and does, happen in Rodriguez’s anarchic caper, including a ludicrous sci-fi finale recycled from late 1970s James Bond. Unfortunately, all of the gratuitous bloodshed and high-velocity hijinks are dull and repetitive.

Machete Kills puts the tat in Mex-ploitation, the frankenword coined by writer-director Rodriguez to encapsulate his Latin-flavoured homage to exploitation films of the 1970s and 1980s.

US President Rathcock (Charlie Sheen) grants Mexican superspy Machete Cortez (Danny Trejo) citizenship in exchange for hunting down an emotionally unstable terrorist called Marcos Mendez (Demian Bichir), who intends to launch a stolen nuclear missile into the beating heart of Washington D.C..

Machete’s assigned handler is a sassy undercover agent, who passes herself off as a busty beauty queen called Miss San Antonio (Amber Heard).

“Try not to be distracted by the cleavage and hairspray. It’s part of the cover,” she coos.

Machete wields his namesake without mercy as he cuts a swathe through Mendez’s henchmen, unmasking the mastermind of the diabolical plot: an arms manufacturer called Luther Voz (Mel Gibson), who has a compelling reason for unleashing “gargantuan, irrevocable anarchy”.

Thankfully, Machete can always rely on his feisty sidekick with an eye patch, Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), and her underground band of brothers for back-up.

Complicating matters, an elusive assassin called La Camaleon (Lady Gaga) and a vengeful brothel madam (Sofia Vergara) are also on Machete’s trail, both intent on disproving the myth that the superspy is impervious to bullets and blades.

Bookended by previews of a third chapter entitled Machete Kills Again... In Space!, Rodriguez’s film outstays its welcome well before Gibson enters the fray as a deranged Blofeld-style villain intent on establishing a new world order.

Trejo barely registers emotion, even rage, as he slices, dices and decapitates the supporting cast while Antonio Banderas and Cuba Gooding Jr enjoy brief cameos.

Jokes fall flat apart from one throwaway flourish: obscuring a sex scene with 3D blurring and asking the audience to Put On Your Glasses via a flashing on screen caption, even though no one has a pair of plastic specs.

The second hour of Machete Kills also passes in a blur but that’s a result of the audience drifting in and out of bored consciousness rather than visual trickery.

Action/Comedy/Sci-Fi. Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr, Demian Bichir, Charlie Sheen, Vanessa Hudgens, Jessica Alba, Lady Gaga, Mel Gibson. Director: Robert Rodriguez.